Twilight paradox: how the most popular vampire saga has influenced our pop-culture
by Ekaterina Kucher
“I’d never given much thought to how I would die. But dying in the place of someone I love seems like a good way to go.” You hear these words and either recognize them immediately and turn around to see if they show Twilight on TV again or you were not a teen in the 2000s.
More than a decade ago Stephenie Meyer's novel hit the cinemas and made a whole generation fall in love with a beautiful story of an ordinary girl and a hundred-year-old vampire, turning upside down our understanding of these bloodthirsty creatures. Violent monsters afraid of garlic and aspen stakes were replaced by strong, fast, and divinely beautiful Cullens, who managed to charm not only Bella Swan but also thousands of viewers around the world.
The first movie of the top-grossing saga was released on November 21, 2008, and that was how the ascent of Twilight began. No one expected that it would be such a huge success: before Summit Entertainment took over the production of the movie, several other distribution companies had turned down the project. However, the franchise has earned more than 3 billion dollars over the years and made its main actors Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson the highest-grossing Hollywood stars, proving the teenage audience to be one of the most promising ones.
The first movie of the top-grossing saga was released on November 21, 2008, and that was how the ascent of Twilight began. No one expected that it would be such a huge success: before Summit Entertainment took over the production of the movie, several other distribution companies had turned down the project. However, the franchise has earned more than 3 billion dollars over the years and made its main actors Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson the highest-grossing Hollywood stars, proving the teenage audience to be one of the most promising ones.
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Warning: the article contains mild spoilers!
“And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…”
Twilight tells us a story of a 17-year-old Bella Swan who moves from Phoenix, Arizona, to Forks, the gloomy town in Washington, to live with her father. Being sheepish and quiet, she is uncomfortable with her new classmates: everyone in the city school already knows about her as the sheriff's daughter. Despite the social awkwardness, Bella gradually makes friends, including the popular girl Jessica, the photographer for the school newspaper Angela, and the kind guy Mike, doomed to an eternal friend-zone.
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However, once her daily routine is interrupted by the iconic cafeteria scene: Bella finally meets them - the aloof and mysterious Cullen siblings. Intrigued by their dazzling beauty, she is particularly attracted to the youngest one, Edward, an acquaintance with whom does not go the best way: thinking about ways of killing Bella in a biology class is not the most romantic act he could have thought of. Swan turns out to be Edward’s “singer”, which means her smell is exceedingly appealing to him. Сoupled with Bella’s ability to resist mind-reading (which is Edward's superpower) and her “not-like-everyone-else” personality, there was no chance for the poor guy to stay indifferent.
Beauty and the Beast?
Gradually Bella learns Cullen’s secret, but she is not repulsed by it: on the contrary, the danger attracts her, despite Edward's constant warnings. Twilight becomes kind of a modern interpretation of Beauty and the Beast, only instead of a beast, there is a sparkling in the sunlight vampire, who also strives to push away his beloved, fearing to hurt her and trying to save her soul. Of course, all the emotional swings in the relationship between the main characters now seem far-fetched, otherwise, there would be an explanation why a hundred-year-old vampire behaves no better than a teenager or a drama queen, trying to convince Bella that he is a monster, even though Cullens have been living without harming people for years.
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Throughout five films (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and two-part Breaking Dawn), Bella and Edward's relationship develops, crashes, goes through a crisis (if we can call Jacob, a werewolf who is in love with Bella, a crisis), and ascends to eternal love once again. Together they overcome many difficulties, including fighting an army of newborn bloodsuckers, meeting the royal vampire coven Volturi, and trying to learn how to be young parents. It is not surprising that all these plot twists not only brought the characters closer in the end but also made Twilight one of the most popular sagas of the 2000s, showing teenagers a love story that will be remembered for a long time.
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Stars are born
It probably will not be a secret to anyone that Twilight is often criticized for its terrible acting. The leading actress Kristen Stewart was constantly accused of having the same facial expression throughout the entire series, lacking talent, and strange gestures. Even now, in 2021, a video by @brodywellmaker in which her acting is ridiculed has gained 6 million likes on TikTok. And let's be honest, there is some truth in this: the performance of the main actors in the franchise can hardly be called ingenious, however, this is mostly the fault of the original source: neither Bella nor Edward had a wide emotional range in the novels.
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So, although Kristen was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Awards for her performance in Twilight (and she even won it in 2013!), these movies allowed her to become one of the most well-paid actresses in America. Before the saga Stewart, as well as Robert Pattinson who played Edward, was only an aspiring artist: there were no particularly memorable roles in the repertoire of both actors, apart from Pattinson’s cameo as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
So, it was the Twilight saga that made the leading actors real Hollywood stars and allowed them to get parts in better projects (let’s just remember Pattinson’s role in Nolan's recent Tenet or Stewart’s performance in Woody Allen’s Café Society).
Twilight phenomenon
Despite all the controversy surrounding the Twilight saga, we cannot deny that it has greatly influenced our pop culture. Of course, Twilight was not the first franchise that raised topics interesting for young adults or created a whole new fantasy universe with its laws: the first Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings films were released 7 years before the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's novel, and both franchises gained worldwide success. However, Twilight became a phenomenon for the romance that distinguishes it from the previous projects: telling us a trivial love story of those who cannot be together, the saga still allows its characters to achieve a happy ending, showing that everyone is worthy of affection (even if it is a gloomy vampire with family issues or a teenage girl with social anxiety).
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The secret of Twilight’s success lies in a simple thing: the movies satisfy all the needs of the target audience, which is mainly teens. In addition to the exciting love component and the constant drama between Bella and Edward, it shows common teenage emotions and troubles, such as the regular tendency for rebellion, first romantic experience, problems in communication with peers, social awkwardness, or difficulties with parents. Let's at least remember Bella and Charlie: she calls him by his name, although he is her father; they practically do not communicate, and, despite the family affection for each other, their relationship is far from perfect. All these problems, which are shown in the background, resonate with adolescents and make Twilight so understandable and close for them.
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The Twilight saga also created a new type of female protagonist, in which many of the young girls found themselves. Bella Swan is ordinary, and it is her greatest distinguishing feature: unlike most heroines, she does not have eye-popping beauty, astonishing intelligence, or incredible charisma. Bella is a misfit, and it makes her mundane, it shows that every girl has a chance to be the main character of her own story. And who has not dreamt of it at least once?
| The path many followed Bella and Edward’s story not only brought the long-forgotten theme of vampirism back to life, but also became an inspiration for a number of new young adult projects: the popularity of The Hunger Games, Divergent, or The Mortal Instruments became possible on the wave of success that did not subside after the release of the first Twilight movie. It has paved the path that many other fantasy franchises followed. And it is needless to say that a powerful fandom created by Stephenie Meyer and the filmmakers has encouraged a lot of people to write fanfiction, create memes, make original cosplays for the iconic characters, and even publish their own books (yes, E.L.James*, this is about you). Of course, Twilight will not go down in history as an example of high art full of deep meaning, but people do not always need it. Sometimes all we need is to get away from routine and enjoy the heart-warming story about immortal love, albeit banal and full of plot holes, but which reminds us of the times when the only problem was to choose between #TeamEdward and #TeamJacob. Sometimes all we need is to stay seventeen for “a while”, just like Edward Cullen did. |
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*E. L. James is a British author who wrote the best-selling erotic romance trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey, which originally was the Twilight fan fiction.
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